Back up Bow by Pedro Ampuero

We all travel a lot of miles to get to our hunting areas, sometimes by car, train or plane. The hunt is only a few days and all the equipment must work perfect.

To avoid any problem in the hunts, the most important thing is to take care of the bow and bring it in all hunts in the best conditions as possible. Try to have a reliable bow and accessories, you don’t want a sight getting loose, or bow strings stretching with temperature changes. Always take equipment you are confident with, and that you have tested before, hunts are not for trying new things.

Although you do your best to have all your equipment perfect, things always happen in the most unwanted moment, and we can have hundred kinds of things going wrong in the bow. My bow fell down a tree and broke a limb with one of my steel tree steps. I had to throw my bow down the mountain to save my life on a steep area hunting for ibex. All the brush from the Cameroon rain forest moved my peep sight. I have broke sights, rests, releases… Lot of things!

PSE’s Pedro Ampuero Hunting Gear

Years ago I use to take all the required equipment to solve any problem on my bow I could have. I had a portable bow press and was ready to change strings and cables, also brought spare sights, rests, etc.. This could save your hunt! Although it took a lot of time to solve a major problem on your bow, and all that time you could be hunting. Apart from that, is hard to get the bow as good as you would like. You need to sight again your sight, adjust the rest, etc.. When you are in the middle of the mountains it is hard to do things properly.

For all these reason, I am taking always with me in all my hunts a back up bow. The backup bow is exactly the same rig as the hunting bow, that way I have also a spare part of anything, from sight, rest, bolts,.. At the same time, I am using the exactly same arrows for both, which save extra space. This bow is perfectly set, and I could change one bow with the other and be hunting without even notice. I can distinguish them because they are different camo, that’s it.
What do you do, bring a back up bow or the equipment necessary to solve any problem?

Good luck in the mountains, be safe,
Pedro Ampuero

Pedro is a mechanical engineer by trade and a bowhunter by heart. He is the co-founder of the blog AdventurousBowhunter.com and Cazandoconarco.es and has written many articles for the hunting industry and currently collaborates with the most prestigious companies on the industry.